interesting article on a possible replacement for crude as a chemicals feedstock:
My comment: if this takes off, and solar/wind replaces oil/gas/coal in electricity generation, what will we use oil for? Probably not a problem for at least 10 years.
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Cargill, Dow Chemical Join
To Make 'Natural Plastic'
By SUSAN WARREN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
January 11, 2000
Cargill Inc. and Dow Chemical Co. said they are ready to launch full-scale commercial production of a new kind of "natural plastic" made from plants, such as corn or wheat, instead of petroleum.
The plans mark the companies' leap to the front of a long race among agriculture and chemical companies to find a cost-efficient way to make durable plastic from the natural chemicals in common plants. It also marks the most ambitious effort yet to move a product that has been in the laboratory and testing stages into the mass market.
The companies say they expect their new plastic to be versatile and strong enough to compete with other common plastics for use in clothing and carpet, containers for food and plastic film for candy wrappers and window envelopes.
Grain-processing company Cargill, of Minnetonka, Minn., and Dow, which is based in Midland, Mich., have committed to spend $300 million on the business, branded NatureWorks, over the next two years. The investment includes construction of a manufacturing plant in Blair, Neb., that will produce 300 million pounds a year of the new plastic, called polylactide, or PLA, developed by their 50-50 joint venture, Cargill Dow Polymers. The new plant should begin producing PLA by the end of next year.
Cargill Dow said it has lined up enough customers to sell out its first year of production at the new plant. Within 10 years, the company said it hopes to be producing a billion pounds a year of PLA from four plants around the world.
While other companies have succeeded in making plastic from plants, the process has been too expensive, or produced products inferior to the traditional petroleum-based plastics already on the market.
Current petrochemical-based plastics never break down, or break down very slowly in the environment. In addition, plastics makers are buffeted by raw materials prices, particularly the volatile price of crude oil, which in recent months has left them with high costs at a time of low chemicals prices. Growing plastics presumably would smooth out the cycles and be more environmentally responsible. Plant-based plastics would also expand the market for common crops.
Monsanto Co.'s effort to produce plastic from genetically engineered plants fell victim to recent cost-cutting at the company. DuPont Co. has succeeded in making a kind of polyester plastic using fermented corn, called 3GT, but it is still years away from commercial production.
But while PLA may be a biological wonder, it isn't biologically engineered, company officials say. Cargill Dow is emphasizing the new plastic's all-natural origins to distance it from the controversy surrounding efforts to create new products by tinkering with plant genetics.
"Our product doesn't require any genetic engineering for success, and there are no traces of that," says Jim Stoppert, president and chief executive of Cargill Dow.
While similar in traits to a polyester plastic called polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, used in soda bottles and carpeting, Cargill Dow officials are seeking to distinguish PLA as the first plastic made entirely from renewable resources. Packages made from PLA are biodegradable. As a fiber used in clothing, it has the wrinkle-resistance and versatility typical of synthetics, but has a softer feel than most polyesters.
For labeling purposes, the company is petitioning federal trade regulators to classify PLA as a whole new category of plastic. "We don't want to get lumped in [with polyester], because it truly is different," Mr. Stoppert said. When blended with cotton or wool, clothing makers can still claim "all-natural," he said.
Cargill had been tinkering with the idea of making plastic from plants since the 1980s. The turning point came in 1997 when the company linked its laboratory know-how with the plastics expertise and market clout of Dow Chemical.
Cargill Dow's process taps the carbon harvested by plants from the air and soil and stored in starchy sugars. Cargill Dow extracts the sugars and feeds it to special microbes -- similar to those that turn milk into yogurt -- which convert the sugar into lactic acid. The lactic acid is then chemically reacted with a catalyst to produce polylactide.
In the future, Cargill Dow hopes to improve the fermentation process enough to be able to use plant waste products such as corn husks, rice hulls, or wood pulp. |
